President Donald Trump has said the United States is in a position where it could impose very powerful sanctions on Turkey or others if it wanted to.

Trump made the remarks on Friday after he spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a temporary cease-fire in northern Syria teetered amid report of Turkish mortar fire.

Trump tweeted that Erdogan told him that the break in the cease-fire was due to “minor sniper and mortar fire that was quickly eliminated.”

“He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work. Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen,” he added.

Earlier on Friday, Erdogan warned that Turkey’s army could restart its ground offensive in northeast Syria if Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) do not pull back from a so-called safe zone under the five-day ceasefire.

“If the promises are kept until Tuesday evening, the safe zone issue will be resolved. If it fails, the operation… will start the minute 120 hours are over,” the Turkish leader told reporters during a briefing in Istanbul.

He said the Turkish armed forces would remain in the region “because the security there requires this.” Erdogan added that there had been no issues so far.

The “safe zone” would be 32 kilometers (20 miles) deep, and 444 kilometers (275 miles) long, he said, and “not between (the Kurdish-populated towns of ) Kobani and Tal Abyad.”

Erdogan said the region between the towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn had been cleared, “but this is not over. The process is ongoing.”

Turkey last week began pounding the positions of Kurdish fighters with jets and artillery and sent in troops to purge them from the area east of Euphrates.

The offensive came three days after Trump announced he would pull US troops from the region, effectively exposing its allied Kurdish militants to their archenemy, Turkey.

Trump’s move to withdraw troops from Syria was widely condemned by both Republican and Democratic Party lawmakers in Congress, including Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C).

US Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday said that Turkey agreed to end the military offensive in northern Syria after Kurdish fighters withdraw from Erdogan’s desired safe zone in Syria near the Turkish border, where the Turkish leader wants to relocate the estimated two million Syrian refugees who are in Turkey.

Trump said in return he would suspend the economic sanctions that he imposed on Turkey earlier in the week.

US lawmakers to keep up Turkey sanctions push

On Thursday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they would keep up their push for harsh sanctions on Turkey despite the ceasefire announcement.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen announced legislation that would impose what they called “crippling” sanctions on the Turkish government.

The lawmakers are targeting Turkish officials, want to end US military cooperation with Turkey, which is a NATO ally, and seek to mandate sanctions over Ankara’s purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defense system.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committees also introduced sanctions measures with the support from both sides of the isle on Thursday.

They said they viewed the threat of tough sanctions as leverage to force Turkey comply with the ceasefire and leave Kurdish areas in northern Syria for good.

US Sen. Chris Van Hollen, (D-MD) (L) speaks while Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), listens, during a news conference to discuss the introduction of bipartisan legislation to impose severe sanctions on Turkish officials in response to their incursion into northern Syria, on Capitol Hill on October 17, 2019 in Washington, DC.

“Turkey has legitimate national security concerns within Syria but they cannot be met by invasion and force of arms,” Graham said in a statement.

“Senators Van Hollen and Graham have spoken, and they agree on the need to move full steam ahead with their legislation,” said Bridgett Frey, a Van Hollen spokesman.

A spokesman for Senator Graham also said they were going to move ahead with the sanctions measures.

On Wednesday, Elizabeth Lynne Cheney, the Republican Conference Chairwoman of the US House of Representatives, unveiled legislation to place sanctions on Turkey in response Ankara’s military offensive in northern Syria.

The legislation called the Countering Turkish 5 Aggression Act of 2019 would target Turkey’s energy sector, restrict the US from selling arms to Ankara, and impose sanctions on Turkish leaders, including its president, vice president, minister of Defense and those working its defense sector.

Cheney, who is Cheney is the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the No. 3 Republican in the House, has slammed the Trump administration’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria and allowing Turks to enter Syria, arguing it could have negative implications for the American national security.

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